Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
None of us can use another’s eyes, but let us see that we all diligently use our own. My
readers will now no doubt grant, at least in regard to all arks, except their own
Mosaic one, that speaking broadly, arks, shells, buccinæ, trumpets, cornucopias, eggs,
sistrums, and such-like. all signify the feminine principle or fecundatrix generally;
and in particular, such deities as Isis of Egypt. the Multimammia, or Diana of Ephesus,
the Maya, of the East, and Mary of the West, Rhea, Ceres, Kubele, &c.
An ark indeed is nothing by itself, just as a woman was esteemed incomplete or
nought without her husband; and important and venerated as the ark was in all
ancient faiths, it was chiefly so as “the dwclling,place of a god”—the place of creation
or generation—mundane and mortal anciently, but spiritual and immortal said the
peoples of these days—the Archaic Saktit “Grove” or female energy, though always
merely so even then, in a sort of spiritual sense, such as Parvati is to Siva, and Lakshmi
to Vishnoo. Creation there was indeed, but not brought about or manifested in any
mundane way; nevertheless the ark without the god, and the god without the ark was
imperfect in all respects, as a city without a king, or a church without a bishop.
When correcting the above—written several years ago—for the press, I
observed, in confirmation of it, that the Rome correspondent of the London Times,
of 8th April 1875, says the Roman Catholic Church still keeps up this idea in fact and
in deed. As the ancient Temple or Dagoba was the womb or feminine principle of
the god Siva or Bod and others, so the new Cardinal Archbishop Manning “was after
his elevation,” says the Times, “conducted to his church,” which is here entitled in its
relation to him, “bride” or “spouse,” he calling it “SPONSA MEA!” The Cardinal
is called “the bridegroom,” and the actual building (the shrine of St Gregory) HIS
SPOUSE, and not “the Spiritual Church, which is called Christ.” 1 The Times correspondent
writes thus of this “Sacerdos Magnus,” as he is termed, going to meet “his
spouse the Church.” He stood reverently at the door, “when holy water was presented
to him, and clouds of incense spread around him, to symbolize that in as much as
before the bridegroom enters the bride chamber, he washes and is perfumed, so the
Cardinal, having been espoused with the putting on of a ring to the Church of his
TITLE, holy water and incensee are offered to him, . . . when the choir burst forth
with the antiphon—Ecce SACERDOS MAGNUS.” We are thus assured, as far as this is
possible, that the Phallic idea, and a Phallic faith, lies at the base of this creed; and
we are reminded of Apis of the Nile wtering his palace for his “works of sacrifice and
mercy”—terms applied to the duties of “the great generator,” or Great Creator. The
ancients all taught that their great one, Manoo, man, or Noh, hn, was in the great ark
which floats “in the midst of the waters,” and that the whole was “a mystery”
incomprehensible to the unitiated, or “unregenerate mind.”
He who is lord of the Christian ark, is the Lord of all nations which the Great
Sacerdos, or Pope, claims to be. He is, or was. till very lately, a temporal as well as
spiritual head of kings and nations, so no wonder that the holder of the “rod,” baton,
1 [Qy. “Bride of Christ”; cf. the orthodox glosses on the Song of Solomon. — T.S.]
147